


And The Reason Is You

by ladydurin_x



Series: The Carne Collection [1]
Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene from 4x02, Reckless mixing of Book and Show canon, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 17:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20261506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladydurin_x/pseuds/ladydurin_x
Summary: The missing conversation Drake & Morwenna should've had during 4x02. Or Drake finally learns why Morwenna married Osborne.





	And The Reason Is You

**Author's Note:**

> I'm never going to stop being mad that DH changed Morwenna's motivation for marrying Drake (I loved the change, don't get me wrong it made sense), but never mentioned it again.  
I also always thought that their conversation in 4x02 would've been a perfect time to tell Drake the truth. Alas.  
Anyway, here I am, a whole year late with what is essentially just a random mix of book canon and show scenes. I'm sorry.
> 
> Massive thank you to Megan for inspiring me to get back into writing - go check out her stuff she's dismiss_your_fearsx and she's marvellous.

Sometimes, things happened for a reason, Morwenna mused. 

For example, she hadn’t been planning to slip away from the gathering. She had promised herself that morning that she would get through the Feast Day festivities with a smile on her face. 

The smile part had been a lie, of course. She rarely smiled these days. Certainly not since the truth had come out about Rowella and Osborne. She had lost her one remaining ally that day. 

She hadn’t managed to keep her promise about smiling her way through the day, but she had found herself more than content to spend the day with her cousin Elizabeth, discussing their children, as far from Osborne as possible.

Her cousin hadn’t asked any questions. She hadn’t even looked especially surprised when Morwenna had suggested they walk to the wrestling match together. Elizabeth was a perfect lady; always polite and cordial, but sometimes she thought she saw that mask slip around Osborne. 

Morwenna’s husband tended to have that effect on people.

She hadn’t been planning on slipping away, but Elizabeth’s distraction had given her the perfect chance to find a moment to herself, away from the crowds. Away from Osborne, and George. Even Elizabeth. It was so rare that she was ever really alone now. 

Sometimes, even now she wasn’t directly involved the way she had been during her time at Trenwith, Morwenna wondered at the continuing animosity between the Warleggans and the Poldarks. She had, once, asked Osborne about it. He so dearly loved a gossip that she’d thought he might have something to say on the matter. He hadn’t. The dispute was still so bad that even the children weren’t allowed to interact. 

Then again, Morwenna mused, what did the cause matter? It was only the results that concerned her; one such being her disastrous marriage to Osborne.

It wasn’t _ quite _so bad anymore, she reminded herself as she walked, gently pulling her hat from her head. Since her, threats against John Conan, which, though empty, of course, still caused her no small amount of shame when she thought on them, Osborne had, more or less, kept out of her way. Sometimes, almost as though to test the waters, or gauge her commitment to her threats, he would make some offhand comment or other about her duties as a wife. He never tried to touch her anymore, though, and that was everything. The best she could hope for in her marriage.

Still, she missed her old life. Back when she had still been plain Morwenna Chynoweth, wife of no one. She missed Geoffrey Charles terribly. She didn’t see much of him anymore. His letters had grown infrequent, and his visits even rarer as he aged. The last time she had seen him, she had been astounded by how much her former charge had grown. 

It was hard now to find any lingering trace of the plump ten year old she had been introduced to upon first arriving at Trenwith. 

She missed the golden sands of Hendrawna beach, and the delight of the carefree days she had spent there. 

And, though she would seldom allow herself to think of it, even when she was alone at night, more than almost anything she missed Drake Carne. 

She stopped at the edge of the slipway, breathing in the sea air. It seemed strange of it now, but when George had first engaged her as his step son’s governess, she had never given much thought to the sea. Granted, in all her then eighteen years, she had never lived more than maybe twelve or so miles from the beach, but she had never had cause to enjoy or even admire it. It just was.

Now, she missed it. Osborne had little appreciation for the outdoors, scoffing if Morwenna mentioned the advantages of fresh air and exercise, dismissing it as evidence of her nonsensical girlish sensibilities. So it had been a long time since she had enjoyed the exfoliating feeling of sand between her toes, or the sea breeze whipping her hair about her face with no care for how much effort it always took her to tame it afterwards. The smell of the salt, and the way it clung to her skin. The way she could always taste on her lips for hours afterwards.

She inhaled that smell now, closing her eyes.

**xXx**

As Drake watched Morwenna talking animatedly with her cousin, he marvelled at how easy it had been to convince himself that he was over her. That everything they had had was over. That he no longer cared.

It seemed laughable now.

It had been two years since he’d seen her up close. When he had spotted her in the crowds gathered for the hanging, the distance between them had obscured the finer details of her face. Details he’d been certain he had committed to memory.

Looking at her in the church had made him feel ill.

Immediately, he had known it was a mistake to go. As soon as Demelza had heard who would be conducting the service, she had advised him to wait with Sam for the wrestling match. Ross had eagerly offered to wait with them; he had earned a withering glare for his troubles.

Drake had assured them all he would be fine. He had always enjoyed going to church, and since losing Morwenna, he had begun to neglect his faith. Maybe it was time he started engaging with it again.

The moment he clapped eyes on her, he wished he’d taken his sister’s advice. 

If the years they’d spent apart had been unkind to Drake, they’d been _ cruel _to Morwenna.

She looked harder, thinner, older. There were lines around her mouth that he was certain hadn’t been there before. It was as if her mouth was no longer made for smiling. 

The spark he had fallen for was gone. Extinguished. 

Sam had always bemoaned his brother’s attraction to her. The disparities in both their stations and religious practices were all Sam had been able to see. He had talked himself hoarse on several occasions doing his best to warn Drake of the sins of carnal lust. 

He’d never been able to understand that for Drake it hadn’t been about lust. It had been about that spark. Of course he was attracted to her physically, but it had been that spark, one that was entirely Morwenna, that had drawn him to her in the first place. 

There had been a brightness to her short-sighted eyes, always just barely concealed by her determined shows of propriety. Drake could still remember how brightly it had shone when he had dared her to kiss him. 

It was gone now.

Deep down, Drake knew it was ridiculous to mourn it. It wouldn’t have mattered if Morwenna had been completely unchanged. It was as Sam said; _ what is done cannot be undone. _Morwenna belonged to someone else now. She was Mrs Whitworth. Nothing could change that fact.

Agatha’s warning had reached them too late.

He didn’t care for her anymore. He’d been telling himself the same thing for years, but it was easier to believe now, sat looking at her. The Morwenna he had fallen in love with was gone. Yet, something kept him rooted to his seat, just watching her.

Then Drake was trapped. He couldn’t leave before the gentry; that wasn’t _ proper _. So there he sat, staring resolutely at his feet, determined not to meet her eyes and embarrass them both. 

He heard a soft little gasp that told him he’d been spotted. He kept his head down until he saw Elizabeth’s dress sweep past his feet. He was safe now.

Only, when he looked up it was as though the Harry brothers had punched him in the gut all over again. The air had been knocked clean out of him.

Morwenna was looking at him. More than looking; she was _ smiling _. At him.

It was as though the sun had come out. That spark he had previously thought was long since gone was still there. Shining through as they looked at each other.

He’d walked to the wrestling match as if in a daze, trying to cling to the warmth of that smile.

Once the match was over, and he was certain that Sam had suffered no lasting damage, the brothers sat in comfortable silence, each watching the woman they loved. 

Drake wondered absently if there was any remaining hope for Sam and Emma. Truth be told, he’d always thought her a strange choice for his brother, though it wasn’t as if the head had much say in matters of the heart. His own relationship history was proof enough of that. Sam’s attachment seemed genuine enough, but Emma was harder to read. Of course, the pair had discussed Sam at length during Emma’s frequent visits to Drake’s smithy. If Sam wasn’t there for her to tease, Emma loved to ask Drake questions about his serious brother. By now, Drake was pretty certain there was some real depth to her feelings for Sam. Perhaps she wasn’t willing to admit it, even to herself, but Drake had seen her expression as she watched Tom Harry throwing Sam around. 

He frowned, turning his attention back to Morwenna, who was talking to Elizabeth. Perhaps he wasn’t the best authority on matters of the heart. After all, he’d been naïve enough to allow himself to believe that Morwenna really would reject Whitworth after their conversation in the sand dunes at Hendrawna.

Whatever Sam had said in the years since he’d lost her, Drake was steadfast in his belief that Morwenna had never loved her husband. Even so, he couldn’t for the life of him account for her sudden change of heart. It still haunted him even now, the not knowing. 

Morwenna had loved him, she’d told him that much herself. So _ why? _

Drake didn’t see the reason for Elizabeth’s departure, too caught up in his own thoughts, but watched with interest as Morwenna took the chance to quietly slip away from the gathering. 

The same force that had kept him rooted to his seat in the church took hold of him again, urging him after her.

**xXx**

“Morwenna?”

Morwenna’s heart stuttered as she opened her eyes. It had been two years, but she would have known that voice anywhere. 

She tried to steady the fluttering in her stomach as she turned to face him.

Smiling at him in the church had been a mistake. She’d felt his eyes on her throughout the sermon. Even after the years spent apart, the weight of his gaze on her was at once comforting and heady. It had made keeping her attention on the words of the sermon almost impossible despite her best intentions.

Instead, she had allowed herself to tune out Osborne’s grating voice, her thoughts wandering as she left herself wonder what Drake saw when he looked at her now.

Often enough, when she looked in the mirror, she barely recognised herself.

Long gone was the girl who had run across the sands at Hendrawna Beach, fists filled with her skirts as she hoisted them high above her ankles. Above even her knees when she was feeling particularly daring. 

In that girl’s place was someone much older. Thinner. Harder.

Having been raised as a dean’s daughter, and of a naturally modest disposition, it was not in Morwenna to be vain, but she couldn’t help but notice that she now looked closer to thirty five than twenty, with her sallow skin, and dull, lank hair. She was almost matronly. 

Two years had changed a lot, but not Drake. He was still the most beautiful young man she had ever seen.

_ He must wonder what he ever saw in me _, she thought sadly.

The dream had barely begun before it had been lost. Now it was gone forever. Lost forever to the rudest of awakenings.

She hadn’t been able to keep herself from looking at him in turn as she followed her cousin from the church. She’d been unable to hold back the little gasp at seeing him up close for the first time in so long. She knew he’d heard her from the way he twitched, even as his eyes remained firmly fixed on the floor.

She’d wanted to take a moment to remember all the details she’d forgotten, and to take in the new ones; like the small division in his left eyebrow. Morwenna wondered for a moment how it had happened, before starting as she realised that, at some point during her study his dark eyes had lifted to meet her own.

It was as though the storm that had been churning inside her for the past two years, all the misery and revulsion, had abated. The sun had come out for a moment. Just long enough for her to smile.

It had lasted all of ten seconds.

Now he was in front of her again. Those dark eyes boring into her own once again. This time, however, she did not smile.

“I saw ‘ee; at the hanging.”

The mere memory of Drake standing on that scaffold was enough to make Morwenna tremble. She could only hope he’d mistake it for a shiver caused by the frigid sea breeze. 

She had been a fool to risk going that day. Osborne had come dangerously close to catching her, and how would she have explained it to him? That the need to see Drake, one last time, had been almost primal. A necessity. 

“I thought,” she paused, wondering too late if she should really be telling him any of this. It certainly wasn’t proper, but it was too late to second guess herself. She knew Drake well enough to know that he would press her to finish the sentence if she were to stop. “If it were the last time I should ever see you.”

She trailed off, allowing the words to hang unsaid between them. If he knew her as well as she thought he did, he would be able to grasp her meaning.

The ghost of a smile flickered across Drake’s lips. He understood what she could never allow herself to say out loud. She wasn’t sure she could have put her feelings into words even if she had allowed herself to try, but Drake had always been good at understanding her in that way.

“Knowing ‘ee were there, I’d have died content.”

Now they were moving towards dangerous ground. They couldn’t talk like that anymore. She should never have allowed him to speak to her in that manner to begin with, but it was different now. She was a married woman, and Drake was, well, _ Drake _.

She shifted her weight, ready to take her leave.

“Why did ‘ee do it, Morwenna?”

There was something in his voice that immediately told her what he was asking. It threatened to knock the air from her lungs. “I don’t know what you mean.”

His face fell, shifting to an expression Morwenna recognised from a day in the woods at Trenwith, when they’d stood in front of each other in much the same fashion. When Drake had told her to look him in the eye, and say that she did not love him. A memory of the kiss that had followed ghosted over her lips. She’d have to be stronger today.

When he realised she wasn’t going to relent, Drake sighed. “Why did ‘ee marry him?”

He said each word slowly, taking care to make sure Morwenna couldn’t feign a misunderstanding. It looked as though each deliberately sounded out syllable was causing him physical pain. “You loved me, Morwenna.”

Morwenna choked back a sob. Of course she’d loved him. Loved him still. She’d repeated it to herself so many times in the night, the words becoming something of an anthem to soothe her to sleep. The words served to remind her of why she’d agreed to marry Osborne, why she’d willingly subjected herself to such misery. It had been her only source of strength for months. 

Her fingers itched to touch her bracelet, the one he’d given her before she’d ever allowed herself to acknowledge her budding feelings, to toy with the shells the way she always did when she was nervous, or upset. 

She’d never broken the vow she’d made standing in the hall at Trenwith. The bracelet hadn’t left her wrist once since she’d fastened it around her wrist. Sometimes she worried that the aging rope would break, and she’d be left with nothing but her memories.

Of course she loved him, but what was love compared to her duty to do the right thing? When it came to choosing between loving Drake, and watching him die? What choice had there been?

She exhaled, daring to glance up at him. He was watching her with a hard expression, defiant almost. Why not tell him the truth now? It couldn’t change anything, nothing could now, but, perhaps, it would be of some comfort to him. To know that it wasn’t a lack of love that had changed her. 

She glanced back at the village. “I was going to say yes, you know. I wanted to say yes right then when you first asked me. The second I got back, I went to Mr Warleggan and told him of my intention to reject Mr Whitworth’s proposal.”

She heard Drake let out a shuddering breath as she continued. “They called off my engagement, because of our _ involvement _; they didn’t think it would be fair to allow Os-Mr Whitworth to be caught up in the scandal. I was to be sent home to my mother. I thought it might finally be possible for us,” she scoffed. How pitifully naïve she had been.“You remember the misunderstanding over Geoffrey Charles’s bible?”

Drake nodded, stone faced. It seemed, like her, he no longer believed there had _ ever _been any misunderstanding. She’d forced herself to accept that George had genuinely believed Drake to be a thief for a long time, but after a while, she’d come to the conclusion that he’d simply seen an easy opportunity, and leapt at the chance to get what he wanted.

“When I heard what had happened, I overheard the servants gossiping about your arrest, I went straight to Elizabeth. I had hoped to get her to understand, to explain that it wasn’t in your character to steal anything, let alone from a friend. I tried to get her to see that Geoffrey Charles must have given you the bible as a gift. She wouldn’t listen, I wasn’t there when he made the gift of it. No one would listen. At least until Mr Warleggan promised me-” Morwenna swallowed hard against the lump in her throat.

“Until Mr Warleggan promised me that if I acquiesced to his wishes, if I accepted Mr Whitworth’s hand, all charges against you would be dropped. My marriage for your release.” She said it in a rush, relieved to finally be able to tell someone the truth of it. The relief was short lived when she saw the expression on Drake’s face.

It took a moment, but she watched as understanding dawned on him. 

“They never did say why t’was I was released so sudden.” The grief on his face was plain to see. “It’s my fault.”

Morwenna shook her head emphatically. “It’s no one’s fault, Drake. Least of all yours.”

“I knowed better! To take the scarf ‘ee gave me was one thing, but the bible,” Drake shook his head. “It was too fine a thing. If I’d said no-”

“You would have offended Geoffrey Charles. Drake, you couldn’t have known.” She looked towards the sea again. 

“_ Morwenna _.”

“I’d do it again.”

It was true. Seeing him on the scaffold had been all the confirmation she needed. Sometimes, in the worst of her despair, she had wondered if she would have made the same decision had she known what would come of it. What it would cost her. Perhaps, even if she had refused George’s bribe, Captain Poldark would’ve found a way to get the charges dropped. From what she knew of the man, and what she had seen and heard at the hanging, it was hard to imagine he would have ever let his brother in law hang. 

The hanging. Thinking she was about to watch Drake die had been enough to tell her that she would have agreed to George’s terms again in a heartbeat. Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d agreed. Perhaps George, and the pressure from her mother, and Elizabeth would have been enough to convince her in the end. Drake or no Drake. Morwenna had realised only after the wedding how desperate George had been to ally himself with the Whitworths - or rather the _ Godolphins _with whom they were kin. Her cousin in law always seemed to get his way in the end.

Morwenna turned her attention back to Drake.She ached to reach out for him, instead she gripped her hat tighter. She thought she saw his hand twitch towards her. 

“I cannot be seen here, with you.”

She began to walk away, heart heavy.

“How are ‘ee, Morwenna?”

She knew he was just trying to get her to stay a little longer, but she couldn’t resist. Who knew when she would see him again. _ If _she would see him again. She opened her mouth to reply.

“Do he treat ‘ee more kindly now?”

Morwenna felt the blood drain from her face. How could he possibly know? Then it occurred to her. She had told Demelza that Osborne was a _ monster _. The idea that Drake had some small inkling of what marrying Osborne had meant for her was too much. Her mouth opened uselessly, trying to form the words.

“_ Wife _!”

**xXx**

That night was the first time since she’d made her threat against John Conan that Morwenna lay in bed, mercifully alone, repeating her old mantra to herself.

“I love Drake Carne, I love Drake Carne, I love Drake Carne.”

She whispered it into the darkness, tears rolling slowly down her cheeks. Wishing that somehow Drake would hear her across the miles that separated them.

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said, this is essentially just me shoehorning the church smile from The Four Swans into 4x02 (because I missed it) and adding what amounts to maybe three lines of conversation.  
Sorry.


End file.
